Dina Goldstein
GODS OF SUBURBIA
Last Supper, East Vancouver 2014 - Jesus
This piece is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's iconic, Last Supper, which was painted in the late 15th century in Milan, Italy. My reenactment of history’s most famous dinner party is meant to portray the treatment of the most vulnerable by society. I have placed Jesus and his Apostles, a street gang, specifically in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This is Canada’s poorest postal code and a place of chronic drug abuse, alcohol addiction and mental illness. Jesus and the Apostles consume the diet of street people: cheap packaged noodles, cheap beer and canned tuna, while Judas plots his betrayal of Jesus. In Vancouver, so much money has flowed into the Downtown Eastside, but it is still a place of violence, addiction and homelessness. Like Judas, who betrayed Jesus for money, many have benefitted from initiatives to help Vancouver’s poor, yet the poor still have nothing
Mounted Transparency with LED LIGHT PANEL
Archival top mounted transparency on acrylic with LED light panel / Framed : add matte inches
Large Edition 1 - 7 Medium Edition 1 - 10 Small Edition 1 - 20
3”M 32.5”X58” Panel 26.52”X 52” 2”M 21.9”X39” Panel 17.8”X 35” 1”M 18”X 24”Panel 11.2”X 22”
Gods of Suburbia
This is Dina Goldstein’s third large-scale project 2013-2014. The work is a visual analysis of religious faith within the context of the modern forces of technology, science and secularism. The series plays with narrative and religious iconography in order to communicate how organized belief has become twisted within a global framework driven by consumerism and greed. The project challenges the viewer — religious or secular — to embark on a journey of self-reflection as they contemplate the relevance of dogma in modernity.